The Current Discussion: Australians are voting online for a "Word of the Year" from a list of new words to be included in the dictionary: among the frontrunners, "Chindia", "globesity," and "password fatigue." Create your favorite new word of the year that tells us something about trends in your country.

If it were up to me, I would promote the word “Syrianism!”

Some people, however, cannot even pronounce it—let alone promote it.

This word—the S-Word—runs contradictory to popular rhetoric in Damascus that dates back to 1916. For years, Syrians have been studying the elementary and high school curriculum of the veteran academic Sati al-Husari, an Arab nationalist who introduced the theme: Arabism First! For years “Syrianism” was taboo in Syria.

Continue »